God of the week : Persephone

God of the week : Persephone

Persephone was the Greek goddess of the harvest. She was the Daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Persephone is sometimes referred to as the princesses of the underworld. The Homeric hymn to Demeter tells the story of how Hades carried her away to the underworld to make her his bride. Upon hearing what had happened her mother ,Demeter, caused all of the vegetation on the earth to stop growing. The cries of the people and the other gods persuaded Zeus to send word to Hades to release Persephone. Hades agreed to release her, but before doing so he tricked her into tasting the pomegranate fruit. In doing this, he had cursed her into being bound to him in the underworld for half the year. The story of the abduction of Persephone is often called the rape of Persephone as she was forced to to be the bride of Hades, and then later to bound to him half the year.

Ovid gives her Roman name Proserpine. In the version told in the Metamorphoses it was Jupiter that decided she would spend half the year in the underworld. He did this to console Ceres (the name given to Demeter by Ovid). This was because Jupiter had said he would only rescue Proserpine provided she hadn't eaten anything in the underworld. So when Ceres had learned that Proserpine had eaten the pomegranate she was devastated at the loss, and Jupiter offered consolation by allowing her to return for six months out of the year.